


close your baby blue eyes

by somerdaye



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-21
Updated: 2013-03-21
Packaged: 2017-12-05 23:16:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/729011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somerdaye/pseuds/somerdaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>this is what falling in love sounds like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	close your baby blue eyes

**Author's Note:**

> a very late but happy birthday to the lovely mary <3

you’ve been asleep for too long and you can feel it in your joints, the rigidity of every limb, but you don’t stretch just yet because his head is pillowed on your shoulder and even though you know he wouldn’t hesitate in waking you up, you’ve gotten soft in your old age. if he could hear your thoughts he would scoff. old age? you’re barely thirty. thirty _feels_ old, though, because you’ve never been thirty before.

then again, you suppose every year that passes makes you feel this way. you become more aware of just how old you’re getting by the minute.

fifteen was easy, in hindsight. the routine of classes and home-cooked meals is something you wish you hadn’t taken for granted; and that’s when you met him.

when you first saw him he was all blondeness and braces, and he reminded you of sunshine. that hasn’t changed, you think fondly as you listen to his snores. his hair has long since turned brown, flecks of grey letting themselves be known around the ears, and he hasn’t had braces in over a decade, but his smile still makes you think of summertime. or maybe it’s summertime that makes you think of him, and his dumb backwards caps, the sweat beading on his forehead during the nights, how the sunburn on his cheeks wouldn’t fade until first snow. he and summer are intrinsically linked in your mind.

you think you were happiest at fifteen.

twenty wasn’t easy. it brought sporadic phone calls that got shorter and shorter every time and the sight of his wet eyes as he said that maybe the two of you should take a break until you could be properly together again. you spent the first three years of your twenties pining after him in london and wishing california wasn’t so fucking far away. it wasn’t until you came across a bracelet of his while vacuuming, long since forgotten under your sofa, that you decided packing up and leaving your life would be worth it. for a life with him.

it isn’t like california is all that bad, anyway. you’re staring out the train window now, dismayed by the lack of heat and craggy hills. england hasn’t felt like home in a long time; wherever he is, that’s home.

half your life has been spent with him taking up residence in the largest part of your heart. you think that’s kind of amazing, but mostly it just seems inevitable. you like to show him what he means to you through brushstrokes and kisses -- he isn’t appreciative of words like you used to wish he was. he likes to talk but not to listen, which you’ve found suits you just fine.

he breathes out against your jacket, restless, and you stroke his hair until he’s murmuring questions about where you are, and are you in london yet, and how come you still smell like cigarettes when you quit four months ago. he’s asleep before you can even try to answer any of them.

thirty. you’re thirty. you’ve been thirty for weeks, and it still feels so foreign.

weren’t you supposed to have your life together by thirty? a house, a wife, a dog? that had always been the plan, but the man beside you has altered everything you thought you were certain of, and you can’t find it in yourself to mind. you never expected to be a freelance artist living on the road with the not-even-close-to-famous love of your life. (it always surprises you when you hear his songs, because you know which ones are about you. it isn’t the references to tattoos or the red walls in your bedroom that tips you off, it’s the set of his mouth when he sings them; like they’re more precious than anything else he’s created.)

he is the only constant in your life, the thing that motivates you to get out of warm sheets in the morning and face the rest of the world. you don’t think you could handle it if he leaves again, so you don’t let him; tagging along on overnight gigs and living out of your suitcase for as long as he needs you to. that made it easy, when he decided he wanted to go back to the united kingdom for a couple of days, to find the nearest airport and get on the next flight to heathrow.

“we’re almost home, babe,” you say into his ear. you know full well he hears you, but he stubbornly fakes sleep for the next eleven minutes of the train ride.

your family will welcome you with open arms and tear-streaked faces as they always do, and they adore him almost as much as you do, so you can’t imagine a surprise visit being an issue. what you’ll have to prepare yourself for is the morning, when he is showering and you’re faced with the expectant faces of your parents. what’s the plan, they’ll ask, aren’t you getting a little old for this lifestyle?

no, you don’t think you are.

he opens his brilliantly blue eyes to just look at you in that way he does, like he can’t quite believe you’re still beside him after all these years. you know the feeling. you lean in to press your lips together for a moment, because everyone around you is asleep and sometimes it’s nice to show affection in public without pointed clearings of throats and thinly-veiled annoyance. he hums into your mouth but pulls away too soon for your liking to rest your foreheads together. you never thought you would understand how couples can just stare into each other’s eyes for prolonged periods of time without speaking, but there’s something in his gaze that tethers you to the earth, and you wouldn’t break the spell if you could.

you don’t know what your thirties are going to do to you, or to him, but you’re confident you’ll be together through them, and that makes worrying sort of pointless. love is the callouses of his fingers pressing into your wrist and the way he can’t help but laugh every single time you watch american pie.

it’s quiet on the train; even though you’ve been looking at him for fifteen years you feel you love him more with every beat of your heart. all he’s doing now is breathing, but to you, this is what falling in love sounds like.


End file.
